It was his colossal pride which he thus avenged, without avowing it even
to himself--nay, laboring for a length of time, sometimes for a whole
twelvemonth together, to persuade himself that the interest of the State
was concerned in the matter. Ingenious in connecting his private affairs
with the affairs of France, he had convinced himself that she bled from
the wounds which he received. Joseph, careful not to irritate his ill-
temper at this moment, put aside and concealed a book entitled 'Mystres
Politiques du Cardinal de la Rochelle'; also another, attributed to a
monk of Munich, entitled 'Questions quolibetiques, ajustees au temps
present, et Impiete Sanglante du dieu Mars'. The worthy advocate Aubery,
who has given us one of the most faithful histories of the most eminent
Cardinal, is transported with rage at the mere title of the first of
these books, and exclaims that "the great minister had good reason to
glorify himself that his enemies, inspired against their will with the
same enthusiasm which conferred the gift of rendering oracles upon the
ass of Balaam, upon Caiaphas and others, who seemed most unworthy of the
gift of prophecy, called him with good reason Cardinal de la Rochelle,
since three years after their writing he reduced that town; thus Scipio
was called Africanus for having subjugated that PROVINCE!" Very little
was wanting to make Father Joseph, who had necessarily the same feelings,
express his indignation in the same terms; for he remembered with
bitterness the ridiculous part he had played in the siege of Rochelle,
which, though not a province like Africa, had ventured to resist the most
eminent Cardinal, and into which Father Joseph, piquing himself on his
military skill, had proposed to introduce the troops through a sewer.
However, he restrained himself, and had time to conceal the libel in the
pocket of his brown robe ere the minister had dismissed his young courier
and returned to the table.